Louis Roney: Tunes for all time

Bob Hope’s signature song, “Thanks for the Memory” is an appropriate song, which takes us back to days that were particularly difficult in many ways, and particularly fine in others.

The time: World War II. The place: a USO show in a canteen for service people – in those days mostly GI Joes, sailors, Marines, and guys in the Army, Navy and Marine Air Forces.

The war is the dominating subject in every mind. Concern for loved ones is an emotion known to millions of Americans regardless of station. Guys awaiting orders can’t help wondering if they will become a gold star in the family’s window after the next trip to face Germans or Japanese.

Music is a momentary escape from the reality of coming days, weeks, and months, when their own death is a constant companion of those in combat.

No wonder that Broadway and Hollywood respond to the inspiration of millions of young people’s sacrificing all that is demanded to protect what is called simply the “American way of life.”

Things going on in other lands are so grotesquely inhuman that World War II is a “good war” to G.I. Joe, Rosie the Riveter, and to parents who send their sons into combat. Peaceful kids who wouldn’t kill a fly are transformed into the toughest fighters anywhere because they believe their cause is the “right” one.

To this retired World War II Lieutenant U.S. Navy commentator, a canteen providing unabashed sentimentality seems an accurate setting for those in uniform. The canteen, with its coffee and doughnuts, its volunteer entertainers, and a sense of togetherness, provides a “safety valve,” an innocent fantasy defense against the unknown.

 Then put on stage an “emcee” and some talented folks who could play instruments and sing the great songs, which are generated by America’s best ’30s and ’40s tunesmiths. The audience sitting out front is service people – “the brave boys.” That’s about it.

Songs like: “You’ll Never Know” and “Don’t Fence Me In” set a nice standard. The entertainers “give their all” when called upon to step forward and entertain.

By 1939, Benny Goodman is playing music with a band that includes Harry James, Ziggy Elman, Jess Stacy, Gene Krupa, and Lionel Hampton – Wow!

Count Basie, Artie Shaw, the Dorsey Brothers, Glenn Miller, Bunny Berigan, Bob Crosby, and many other “greats” are playing what the people of that era wanted to listen to, and dance to: swing!

 People loved a melting rendition of the sentimental ballad, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”

Remember “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”? – that made most guys wish they were “Daddy!” How about: “I’ll Never Smile Again,” “Amapola,” “Green Eyes,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “String of Pearls,” “Taking a Chance on Love,” “That Old Black Magic” – surely you know “White Christmas”...

 Who remembers: “His Rocking Horse Ran Away”? Our good friends Gene Hawkins (WWII Army retired) and Lorraine Wood sometimes start singing an old-time favorite as we are riding in a car, and soon the whole car is singing as we go down the road. Sometimes Gene and Lorraine play “can you top this” – that’s when you really hear the “oldies but goodies”! They recollect songs like “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You” and “How High the Moon.” The songs pile on top of each other so fast and are such fun to enjoy! My pal Victor Morel, b.w., and I try to keep up but Gene and Lorraine clearly are the winners. How can they remember all those words?

 In fact the raison d’être, is the music! We are surprised at meeting up with ballads and up-beat songs once dear to us, but of late, like long out-of-sight friends, out of mind.

Musical compositions of such luminaries as Dick Whiting, Bobby Troup, Les Brown, Cole Porter, Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen, Frank Loesser, Sammy Fain, Joe Garland, Arthur Schwartz, Harold Arlen, Bud Green, Louis Prima, Harry Warren, and others, are sadly unknown to kids today. Great singers of the era like Ella Fitzgerald, Margaret Whiting, Bob Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Cab Calloway, The Mills Brothers, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Tony Martin, The Ink Spots, Carmen McRae, Vaughn Monroe, Helen Kane, Ann Sothern, Dick Haymes, Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Carmen Cavallaro, Doris Day etc....Oh! My....

And the great bands of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Duke Ellington, Harry James, Sammy Kaye, Artie Shaw, Woody Herman, Les Brown, Freddy Martin, Kay Kyser, Louis Armstrong...

From “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen,” done the way the Andrew Sisters did it, to “Tico-Tico,” as served up by Carmen Miranda, lightheartedly bring back memories of times we resolve anew not ever to forget. Oh to hear those big band tunes again!